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Intro to the Study of Language > Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology > Flashcards

Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology Flashcards

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1
Q

what is competence in speech?

A

“hidden” knowledge of language as speakers, can’t articulate the rules, stored in lexicon and mental grammar, can’t directly be observed

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2
Q

what is performance in speech?

A

actual production and comprehension of language, may include errors, CAN be directly observed

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3
Q

all communication systems have what?

A

modality and semanticity

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4
Q

what is modality?

A

how information is encoded

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5
Q

what is semanticity?

A

symbols have meaning

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6
Q

what is interchangeability?

A

an individual can both transmit and receive a message

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7
Q

what is arbitrariness?

A

the connection between a symbol and its meaning is arbitrary (doesn’t have to be how it is)

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8
Q

what is discreetness?

A

language is made of individual units that can be rearranged

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9
Q

some communication systems have what?

A

interchangeability, arbitrariness, and discreetness

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10
Q

what is displacement?

A

the ability to communicate about things that are not immediately around

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11
Q

what is productivity?

A

the ability to communicate about new things that have not yet been communicated

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12
Q

ONLY human language has what two communication qualities?

A

displacement and productivity

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13
Q

what is the attempted definition of langauge?

A

communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, signs, or written symbols, which can be combined productively and creatively

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14
Q

what is the central goal of linguists?

A

to understand the contents of out mental grammar and lexicons

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15
Q

how do linguists understand the contents of mental grammar and lexicons?

A

the scientific method, observation, question, hypothesis, experiment, analysis

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16
Q

what is descriptive grammar?

A

a systematic accounting of how the language IS USED and the rules that speakers follow (not how it SHOULD be)

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17
Q

true or false: there is right and wrong in language

A

false

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18
Q

what is phonetics?

A

the study of the basic units of language associated to modality

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19
Q

what are the basic units of signed and spoken languages?

A

signed: location, movement, handshape, orientation
spoken: sounds

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20
Q

what is articulatory phonetics?

A

transcribing and describing the production of speech sounds

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21
Q

what is the difference between consonants and vowels?

A

consonants are produced by partially or completely occluding airflow through the vocal tract while vowels are produced without an occlusion and only are differentiated by the shape of the vocal tract

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22
Q

what are some examples of suprasegmental features?

A

stress, tone, length, intonation

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23
Q

what are voiced sounds?

A

the vocal folds are closed and vibrate as air passes through

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24
Q

what are voiceless sounds?

A

the vocal chords are open allowing air to pass through freely

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25
what is an oral stop?
the complete occlusion of the airstream through the oral cavity from the active articulator touching the passive articulator and sealing the vocal tract
26
what is a plosive?
a stop with a burst of air upon the release of the consonant [p, k]
27
what is a fricative?
a near-complete occlusion of the vocal tract, resulting in turbulent, hissing airflow [f, ð]
28
what is an affricate?
begins with the occlusion of airflow followed by an initial stop and fricative release [d͡ʒ, t͡ʃ]
29
what is a nasal?
air flowing through the nasal cavity, while the oral cavity is fully occluded [n, ŋ]
30
what is an approximant?
the active articulator approaches the passive articulator but DOESN'T occlude the air enough to cause turbulent airflow
31
what is a lateral?
movement of air around the tongue (type of approximant)
32
what are glides?
type of approximant that is a consonant that is articulated like a vowel [j, w]
33
what is a syllabic consonant?
a consonant that is the nucleus of the syllable - no vowel attached to it
34
what are the four features used to differentiate vowels?
height, front/backness, roundedness, tense/laxness
35
what is vowel height?
how high or low the tongue is in the mouth
36
what is vowel frontness or backness?
whether the tongue is pushed to the front or the back of the oral cavity
37
what is vowel roundness? reading the chart are round vowels on the left or right?
whether the lips are rounded or not - for pairs, the right one is rounded
38
what is vowel tenseness or laxness?
tense vowels are longer and require tense muscles while lax are shorter and require looser muscles ([ɪ] and [ʊ] are lax)
39
what are dipthongs?
two consecutive vowels pronounced in the same syllable
40
what is intonation?
acoustic frequency of sentences or phrases that affect the meaning (ex: a question vs. a statement)
41
what is tone?
acoustic frequency of the syllable and affects its meaning
42
what is length?
the length of a segment affects its meaning (not English, but Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, etc.)
43
what is stress?
prominent syllable in a word can affect its meaning (ex: REcord vs. reCORD)
44
what is phonology?
the study of the mental representation of articulatory units (speech sounds/ signs), their groupings, and their patterns within a mental grammar
45
what are the abstract representations of articulatory units called in phonology?
phonemes
46
if one phoneme has multiple realizations - what are they called?
allophones
47
what is the difference between phonetics and phonology?
phonology is the abstract, mental categories speakers use, phonetics is the physical realization of sounds
48
what are allophones?
context-dependent pronunciations of one phoneme
49
how are phonemes vs allophones indicated?
phonemes: /x/ allophones: [x]
50
what are contrastive sounds?
they create different meanings in the same environment
51
if words are differentiated ONLY by one phoneme what are they called?
a minimal pair
52
minimal pairs are proof of what?
proof that two units are contrastive and therefore independent phonemes (contrastive distribution)
53
what is complementary distribution?
allophones of the same phoneme can NEVER exist in the same environment
54
are Bruce Wayne and Batman allophones of the same phoneme or different phonemes?
they are allophones of the same phoneme (Bruce Wayne) because they can NEVER exist in the same environment (Gotham)
55
are Batman and Joker allophones of the same phoneme or different phonemes?
different phonemes because they CAN exist in the same environment
56
what's the anatomy of a phonological rule?
/x/ --> [y] / ___z the phoneme /x/ is pronounced [y] in the environment of 'before z'
57
what is the basic allophone?
the allophone that appears in the MOST phonetic environments or has the least restrictions
58
what is assimilation?
one sound becomes similar to another
59
what are the three types of assimilation?
- nasal place assimilation: /IN-/ - palatalization: [d] --> [d͡ʒ] - vowel harmony: vowel --> similar to another vowel
60
what is dissimilation?
one sound becomes less similar to another (ex: a stop --> fricative)
61
what is insertion / epenthesis?
a sound is inserted (ex: "dance" --> [dænts])
62
what is deletion?
a sound is eliminated (ex: "prerogative" --> [pəɹɑɡətɪv])
63
what is metathesis?
sounds A and B switch places from AB to BA
64
what is strengthening / fortition?
a sound becomes stronger (longer, more obstruction, adding aspiration, etc.)
65
what is weakening / lenition?
a sound becomes weaker (shorter sounds, less obstruction, etc.)
66
what is morphology?
the study of the form of words
67
what are morphemes?
the smallest linguistic unit with a meaning or grammatical function (ex: "cat" and "-s")
68
what are the types of morphemes?
root, stem, affixes
69
what is a root?
conveys a basic meaning (ex: point)
70
what is a stem?
a root to which an element is added (ex: pointy) - can also have a third element added (ex: pointiness)
71
what are affixes?
they are added to stems and cannot stand alone
72
what are the three types of affixes?
prefixes (un-), suffixes (-ing), and infixes
73
what are word classes?
lexical categories or parts of speech - groups of words that express certain morphosyntactic features
74
what is derivation?
adds affixes to a stem and creates a new word that belongs to the same word class or a new word class (ex: friendly --> unfriendly)
75
what is a lexeme?
a word
76
what is compounding?
a type of derivation that creates a new word by adding a stem to another stem (ex: text-book)
77
what is inflection?
doesn't create a new word but creates a new FORM of the same word (ex: corro, corres, corre)
78
what are cases?
a different form of the same word that changes due to the type of speech the word is in (ex: the object vs. the subject)
79
what are homophonous morphemes?
morphemes that sound the same but have different functions (ex: catS vs singS)
80
what are allomorphs?
morphemes that sound different but fulfill the SAME function (ex: dogS and childrEN both show plurality)
81
what is suppletion?
when a word changes its stem in order to change a morphosyntactic feature
82
what is weak suppletion?
a stem changes only partially (ex: bring vs. brought)
83
what is strong suppletion?
the stem changes drastically (ex: is vs. was)
84
what are the NON-ABSOLUTE morphological types of languages?
analytic and synthetic (agglutinating, fusional, polysynthetic)
85
what is an analytic language?
most words have only one morpheme, very few affixes
86
what is a synthetic language?
words frequently contain more than one morpheme, affixes are frequent, there are three subtypes: agglutinating, fusional, polysynthetic
87
what is an agglutinating language?
affixes are added to a stem, the stem and affixes do not change their form when they come together - each affix tends to have only ONE meaning
88
what is a fusional language?
affixes are added to the stem, the stem and the affixes often get "fused", changing form when they come together - an affix can have MULTIPLE meanings (ex: hag-o, hac-es, hac-e)
89
what is a polysynthetic?
many stems and affixes are put together into a single very long word, nouns can become a part of a verb (noun incorporation) (ex: [aninɲamjɔten] means "he is catching fish")

Intro to the Study of Language (2 decks)

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